


Exactly What You Run From (you end up chasing)

by theinksplotch



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ben Hargreeves is Alive, Diego Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Diego and klaus had a thing before five time traveled them, M/M, Post canon fix-it, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Stuttering Diego Hargreeves, but he’s also dead at the same time, protect Vanya hargreeves at all costs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 12:12:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18969049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinksplotch/pseuds/theinksplotch
Summary: Five’s rush to time travel his family away from the end of the world might have caused a teeny tiny mistake in his calculations.Aka Five accidentally turns his siblings into 14 year olds and sends them all to the day of Reginald’s funeral, only they aren’t the only set of Hargreeves present.





	1. Chapter 1

The Umbrella Academy was many things, and a happy family was not one of them.

Maybe it took Diego a couple of years to get that through this head, to form the terrible truth on his tongue like it was one of the words he used to practice in the mirror ( _D-don’t. M-m-move_ ). Maybe it took Ben’s death, Five’s disappearance, Vanya’s stupid book, to prove to him that Sir Reginald Hargreeves was anything but a father. That his so called siblings were more akin to peers than brothers and sisters. That his mother loved them as much as she could, but her smile would never quite reach her eyes. 

That the Hargreeves Manor was _anything_ but a home.

And no matter how much he truly cared for his siblings- his _idiot_ siblings who were just about as fucked up as he was- sometimes he found it difficult to look at them.

Because they took him back in time. Back to _stuh-stuh-stuttering_ and the red lines around his eyes that his domino mask left long after he peeled it off and shaking, nicotine stained fingers tracing the line of his jaw  _so nicely_ and failing to be the best and _Reginald_.

Reginald, not their father, but their owner. The highest bidder. They’d never been children to him. They were his puppets, and he’d pulled each of their strings taunt around their necks.

When Diego left, he told himself he would never see that man again.

Now he would never have to.

_November 9th, 2019._

The day their puppet master kicked the bucket.

Maybe The Monocle was still pulling their strings, even in death- _the_ _show must go on._ Diego could almost feel them time and time again, thin and delicate, tightening with each year he refused to return. He could feel them with every knife he chucked, in the pain behind Eudora’s eyes when he showed up at her doorstep, beaten and bloody for the last time. _Diego I can’t do this anymore._

He could feel them especially, when he stepped foot in Sir Hargreeves’s house for the first time since he was 18.

He wondered if the others could feel them too.

The ceremony was due to start soon, the funeral for their _beloved_ father. Luther wanted to spread his ashes under some tree in the courtyard, Diego figured they were better off pouring good ol’ Reggie into the nearest ash tray and calling it a day.

Diego sighed. The thick, plastic covering that lined all the furniture in the sitting room wrinkled and squeaked when he shifted. He was seriously beginning to question his late father’s decorating abilities. The moose head that hung on the wall above the couch used to terrify him as a kid.

Now it just annoyed him.

He glared up at it from where he sat, and it glared right back down at him. _Long time no see, Number Two_ , it seemed to say. _Still got that stutter, kid?_ Diego thought for a second, about chucking a knife at it, just because he could.

Then all the lights in the house flickered out. The music Luther had been playing from upstairs (Diego had only been tapping his foot to it, definitely _not_ dancing) stopped, plunging the house into a thick, suffocating silence. And then the sound of about a hundred lightning storms sounded off outside, and all the knives Diego had strapped to his belt flew off his person and impaled themselves into the smooth surface of a particularly awful oil painting. Sir Reginald Hargreeves’ portrait glared at him, the hilt of a knife glinting from where it had stuck itself though his father’s forehead. 

Huh.

The lightning sounded off again, louder this time and very very close. 

He was almost sure it was coming from the courtyard.

Diego yanked his knives out of The Monocle’s portrait and booked it for the door, feeling so very much like _Number Two_ he could scream. He was never Diego in this house, never a just a boy.

He was The Kraken.

He could almost hear the ghost of Sir as he ran through the hallways, past pictures of fighting stances that hung on the walls at knee level.  _Hurry, Number Two! This mission waits for no one!_

Diego hurried.

He was the first to reach the courtyard, Luther’s heavy foot falls close behind. Diego skidded to a halt when something hot sliced through the sky, muddling the air around him and leaving the taste of metal on his tongue. Among the fallen leaves and the unkempt plants, was

Well, Diego didn’t really know _what_ it was.

”Wha-“ Luther had managed his big shoulders through the garden doors, stumbling to a stop at Diego’s side.

“Woah,” Diego breathed, squinting up at the harsh, thrumming ball of energy that hung suspended in mid-air and bathed the entire yard in eerie, blue light. It sent his hair standing up at the end, his blood bubbling over inside him. The lightning sounded again, loud and ringing in his ears, and Vanya stumbled through the garden doors, Allison on her heels. “What _is_ that?” 

“Don’t get too close!” Allison shouted over the noise. The angry blue energy seemed to ripple in response. A warning maybe. She had her hand wrapped around Diego’s wrist, he shrugged her off. “Yeah, no shit!” He glared at the thing in the sky, the knives felt heavy in his hands- useless.

“Looks like some sort of temporal anomaly,” Luther shouted over the crackling energy, his voice loud and infuriating in Diego’s ear. “Either that or a major black hole.”

“Out of the way!” Klaus pushed past him and ran towards the strange portal, hugging a fire extinguisher. Diego blanched. “What’re you-“

Klaus heaved the fire extinguisher at the portal. It disappeared once it hit the surface with a ripple and a pop.

“What is that gonna do?!” Allison exclaimed.

Well, it did something.

The ball of energy opened, much like a mouth, and for a moment Diego wondered if it was going to eat them.

But then it did the opposite.

 _People_ tumbled out of the mouth.

Very fucking familiar people. Diego watched them fall to the ground in a mess of flailing limbs and navy blue uniforms. He watched them help each other up off the ground, grumbling and complaining and so _achingly_ familiar. 

The mouth seemed to close once they hit the ground, blipping out of existence like it had never been there in the first place.

He watched 14 year old Diego Hargreeves fall to his knees and puke his guts out in the dirt and the leaves, at the foot of Ben’s statue, not more than ten feet away from where he stood.

“Is it just me,” Klaus is the first to break their stunned silence, making Vanya jump a little. “Or did fun sized versions of us just fall out of that black hole?” 

“I don’t think it was a black hole after all,” Luther mumbled, dumbly missing the bigger picture, as per usual.

“This is…this is _crazy_ ,” Vanya fumbled for the little bottle of pills in her coat pocket, casually slapping Klaus’s hand away when he reached for one. “Right? This is…”

Diego thought about saying something mean.   _No, you’re just ordinary. You don’t get it._

 “I…” he said stupidly instead. It was him. _Them_. Little versions of them in Umbrella Academy uniforms and knee high socks and something in Diego ached to look away. He watched Mini Diego hug his mini siblings, watched him pull Mini Klaus’s face towards his and tell him something with soft eyes.

Mini Klaus. The Klaus from Diego’s memories. All soft curly hair and clear green eyes and lopsided grins. Thin fingers and black, gleaming nail polish and warm breath.

Diego felt his face go a little hot.

“Guys,” Allison said thickly, tears in her eyes. She was looking past Diego, at the group of children. They followed her bleary eyed gaze to Ben’s statue.

To _Ben_.

He was just like they all remembered him, small and chubby faced and _alive_.

Ben was alive.

Diego couldn’t forget the last time he’d seen Ben. The screaming and the blood and the _tentacles_ and the disappointment in their father’s eyes when they returned with Ben’s bloody domino mask and nothing else. 

“No way,” Klaus breathed to the empty space next to him. “Ben, you never told me you were alive.” 

“Okay this is too weird,” Luther said, and for once Diego agreed with him.

“What do we do?” Vanya looked about ready to pop another one of her pills.

“That’s easy. Let’s just go talk to ‘em,” Klaus said before any of them could shut him down, sauntering past Diego and towards the children. “Yoo-hoo! Kiddies!” The mini Umbrella Academy seemed to notice them for the first time, their eyes going wide. “It’s you’re uncle Kl-“

The cock of a gun cut him short. Diego pulled out his knives, Luther balled his hands into fists.

Then the last member of their younger selves’ little group made himself known.

He wasn’t looking at them, rather at the muddy floor beneath his hands, like he was struggling to get up. Mini Luther offered him a hand, but he ignored it, pushing himself up on shaky legs.

Then, for the first time in 16 years, The Hargreeves came face to face with their long lost brother.

Five lowered the gun at the sight of them, but his gaze never softened. He looked sick, his uniform torn and stained. His face was pale, his eyes tired and sunken.

He looked like shit. 

And he looked _pissed_. 

“ _Shit_ ,” he said before promptly crumpling to the floor.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison is a mother at heart and the Diegos literally can’t stand each other. This whole chapter is chaotic.

Allison was used to her siblings fighting with each other. It was the norm, in both childhood and adulthood. Knives got thrown and jaws got broken and somebody always ended up with an atomic wedgie. Wedding cakes were sat on, ceremonies were ruined because of crazy brothers talking very animatedly to people that weren't there, and _again_ with the _atomic wedgies_. It was disastrous and disappointing, but it was expected. It's what they did. Some families went fishing, hers fought.

She just wasn't quite used to them fighting with _themselves_.

_14 year old versions of themselves._

"You think you can come in here and start sassing the grown ups, kid? _Think_ again. I've got knives, and I _don't_ miss."

"Diego-" Allison started, the familiar pains of what she liked to call the Hargreeves Headache starting to creep up in her head. Ah, home sweet home. 

"T-try me, asshole!"

The Diegos were, well. Not clicking as well as they should've been.

"I _think_ ," she said pointedly, setting a plate of peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches down on the kitchen table with enough force to shut her brothers up. "That we should talk about whatever _this_ is calmly and rationally. That means no knife fights, boys." 

Diego- _her_ Diego- grumbled, reluctantly confining the blade back into one of the folds in his ridiculous leather getup. He shifted awkwardly in his seat. " _He_ started it." 

"He's a _child_ ," Allison said with a sigh.

"I'm thirty!" the other Diego snapped, his squishy cheeks going red with anger. He frowned, and Allison wasn't sure if he was going to start throwing knives or a tantrum. Probably both. 

“Don’t pout,” she told him simply, and he looked about ready to bite her head off.

"God, this is _delightful_ ," her Klaus said, his raccoon eyes widening in amusement. He sat perched haphazardly on the back of a kitchen chair in nothing but a feathered coat and a pair of skin tight leather pants, Allison resisted the urge to scold him for not sitting properly. "You know I had a terrible nightmare that went almost exactly like this, once? Except it started off with me showing up to school in nothing but a Hello Kitty thong, which is quite strange considering I've never even _been_ to public school-"

"Not now, Klaus," Luther said, straightening his overcoat with giant hands. "We need to figure out what this has to do with dad's death-" 

"Jesus- this shit again? We have clones, Luther, _clones_ \- and you're still on this?” Diego thew his hands up the air, narrowly missing the tip of Vanya’s nose. “He died because he was _old_. There’s no mystery to solve here, _Scoob_." 

It was starting to rain, Allison noticed. She could just barely hear the soft patter of it over the howling wind, the bite in Diego’s words. Fat droplets splattered against the kitchen windows, chasing each other down the smooth surface of the glass without a care in the world. She found herself wishing that the rain would just wash her away- away from the dusty smell that seemed to linger in the old house no matter how many times their mother cleaned, away from the engraved locket that she had left behind and the sweet boy who’d given it to her, and away from the argument that was beginning to blossom at the kitchen table like a rerun of an old television show; because some things just never change, do they?

"Something isn't _right_ here," Luther argued-

"Something isn't right in that tiny little head of yours," Diego snapped.

"I remember that dream!" Klaus ignored the both of them- well not Klaus, but _Klaus_ (God, this was getting confusing, Allison didn’t think her head could possibly hurt anymore than it already did), the baby faced Klaus with the gap in between his two front teeth, pre-braces. He sat across the table, eyes shining and clear in a way that Allison hadn't seen in Number Four since she was young. "The one with the hippo right?"

"Yeah!" her brother grinned like the maniac he was, nodding so hard that he could’ve been one of the limited edition Umbrella Academy bobble heads: junkie edition. He looked quite sick after a second or two, like he suddenly realized having a conversation with 14 year old him wasn't all that normal- _even_ for him. ” _Christ_ , I need a drink."

"No no no no," Diego grabbed their brother by the feathers of his coat before he could drift out of the kitchen. "Nobody is leaving until we get some answers," he glared at the children across the table, and Allison resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Diego couldn’t fool any of them with his bad cop act. He’d slept with a teddy bear until he was 11, and everybody at the kitchen table knew it.

"How did you get here?" he asked them. Thunder rumbled outside.

" _Time travel_ ," Klaus waved his not-yet tattooed hands in the air mysteriously with a slow smirk. 

" _Why_ are you here?"

"We can't tell you," the other Diego said stubbornly. 

“If you’re all thirty, then why do you look like children?” Luther’s brow scrunched up in confusion.

”We...don’t know,” Ben said with a shrug.

“Where did you all _come_ from?” Vanya looked like she might’ve been suffering from a Hargreeves Headache as well. Must be contagious.

”Oh that one’s easy,” Klaus grinned, spaced out teeth and all. “The future.” 

“My head hurts,” Luther announced.

“What happened to Five and Vanya?” Allison asked.

"We can’t really. Tell you that either," his younger counterpart looked sheepish as he said it. He glanced at Allison. "Sorry." 

It was so bizarre to see him- the other Luther. The boy with soft voice and the big dreams that she grew up with. He was different now, Allison could tell- not quite Spaceboy, not quite Luther either. 

"What _can_ you tell us?" she asked gently.

It was silent for a moment. The children exchanged a glance. "Time...travel?" Klaus said again uncertainly. 

Diego threw his hands up in the air. "Perfect."

"L-look, when Five wakes up, he'll- I don't know- explain everything. But we don't know jack _s-shit_ about time travel or t-t-timelines-" baby face Diego huffed as he spoke, his chin quivering.

“Picture the word in your mind, little man,” Klaus said lazily from his perch on the chair. “Sh-sh-shut up!” The boy fumed. "G-god, I _hate_ being fourteen again."

"Tell me about it," the other Luther agreed, shifting uncomfortably in his little navy blue uniform. "Was it always this..."

"Sexually frustrating?" Klaus supplied. Luther flushed- _both_ of them. 

"I don't know about horny, but I sure am starving," Ben was on his third sandwich. “Actually, maybe a little horny.” He eyed the plate in the middle of the table, and Allison nudged it over to him with a soft smile. "You can have more, you know," she said, resisting the urge to cup his cheek, to run a thumb down the bridge of his nose like she used to do with Claire. God, she missed Claire. She missed Ben. 

Ben froze mid-chew, dark eyes shifting from the plate to Allison’s face. He stared up at her like she'd grown a second head, seemingly mortified. Klaus patted his shoulder, plucking the last sandwich off the plate and pressing it into Ben's palm gently. "Benny's still getting used to the whole 'other people seeing him now' thing, so don't mind if he's a little shy, Al," the boy grinned impishly. Ben seemed to flush a little at his brother's words, hesitantly taking a bite of his sandwich. "Right, sorry. I just," he swallowed. "Forgot you could all hear me now.”

Allison wanted to say something meaningful.

_I missed you._

_I'm sorry I couldn't save you_. 

"Let me know if you want another one," she said instead.

”Hey that’s alright, little Ben,” her Klaus said. “Everyone gets a little horny every now and again- even little bookworms like yourself.” 

“Klaus, tell yourself to shut up,” Ben said flatly. 

"Five...he...he's gonna be okay, right?" Vanya seemed surprised at the sound of her own voice, like she hadn’t truly expected everyone to look her way. She seemed to shrink a little. Allison wanted to catch her eye, wanted to be able to give her that look that said ‘everything’s gonna be alright’. That’s what sisters were supposed to do, wasn’t it? _Maybe_ , Allison thought. Maybe in another universe- a universe where she hadn’t spent her entire childhood slamming doors in Vanya’s face. Because she wanted the sister thing- God, she _wanted_ to drink wine in Vanya’s living room and paint each other’s nails and watch silly rom-coms. She just...wanted a little too late was all. 

Vanya didn’t look her way.

The other Diego's eyes went uncharacteristically soft at Vanya’s question. "Yeah, Van, he'll be alright."

"He's a strong little asshole, that one," Klaus agreed.

"He's just a little tired, is all," the other Luther said. "Allison is gonna make sure they're alright- both of them."

Allison. Her younger self. The girl had spared them all a reassuring smile before disappearing upstairs with a couple of sandwiches and some damp cloths for Five and Vanya, outright ignoring Luther's offer to help. 

“Children,” Pogo stood in the doorway, their mother at his side. She waved at the new arrivals, like seeing children at the table again after 17 years was something normal. “I believe it’s time to start the ceremony.”

Right. 

Dad’s ashes. 

“This outta be fun,” Klaus said giddily. Luther kicked his chair over, sending him to the floor in a mess of flailing limbs and feathers. 

Allison sighed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!! I tried really hard to make the whole ‘there’s two different versions of them’ thing work, but if there’s any confusion, just let me know :) I’d really appreciate some feedback on how this chapter went as far as characterization !!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What can I say, the Hargreeves put the fun in funeral ;)

 

“They’re going to start wondering where we are, Dee,” Klaus said a little breathlessly, practically melting when Diego mouthed at the soft spot just beneath his jaw.

“Who c-cares,” Diego kissed him hard on the mouth, something in his chest tugging helplessly at the way Klaus had his hands tangled in the fabric his stupid uniform like it grounded him.

Klaus. He was kissing Klaus. _And he didn’t hate it._  

Huh.

And Diego knew better than most, just how much of a prick the man could be. He was mocking and flimsy and spilling over, always too much and seemingly fading around the edges all at once. Klaus was sensory overload, wrapped up in a feathered blouse and tight leather pants, and he knew it. He was sneaky and thieving, and he ignored most Diego’s advice the way he would shut out a particularly annoying ghost. But he was...well he was Klaus. And Klaus had always been _something_ to Diego, something longing and sweet- a secret on the tip of his tongue. Maybe it took Diego 16 years and the goddamn Apocalypse to come to the realization that had become muddled with warm breath, sticky and confusing and much too _big_ for their little corner in the mansion that stretched a whole city block wide. 

The last time he’d been kissing Klaus, they were thirty, and they’d been sure the world was ending. And, well, Klaus had been tied to a chair. Klaus kissed like he lived, erratic and everywhere and _desperate_ , and something in the way the man had licked a hot, wet stripe along the plush of Diego’s bottom lip with something like affection made Diego remember being a kid (well, the first time around). A boy with a mouth full of unfinished words and his best friend. He remembered the  glances across the dinner table and the nights on the roof, the musk of weed on Klaus’s breath and the way he always hooked their pinkies while the watched the stars- like a promise that they had both forgotten to keep. He remembered when Klaus left and when he never came back, and how it stung his insides like a wound that wouldn’t heal.

He realized, that day, how long he’d been in love with Klaus, and how much of his life he wasted not even knowing it.

“Why didn’t you t-tell me?” He remembered mumbling into the quiet, stuffy air of the attic, eyes fluttering shut when Klaus had mouthed at his pulse point with wet, warm lips. He was supposed to be helping him get sober, how had they ended up like this? Something in Diego had wanted to pull away, because this was a can of filthy, slimy worms that he wasn’t sure he wanted open.

“Knew you’d figure it out eventually,” Klaus nuzzled the line of his jaw, all stubble and warmth, and Diego’s resolve went out the damn window. “I mean, you’re not totally dense. You’re not _Luther_.”

And then the world ended, and Five’s giant electrical storm had swallowed them whole and knocked them into last week- _literally_.

And now Diego was a thirty year old vigilante trapped in his fourteen year old body, hidden in some random corridor within his childhood home with Klaus grinning up against his mouth, all while the rest of his siblings (the ones who weren’t passed out) were gathering outside for their late father’s (second) funeral. And it was weird to feel like he was teenager even though he knew he was much older, and it was even _weirder_ to like the feeling of Klaus’s smart mouth all open and breathy against his, but Diego had learned to roll with the punches.

(And it was awkward, because Diego was fourteen again and his tongue felt too heavy in his mouth and Klaus felt too _nice_ against him and now the can was open and Diego isn’t sure if he can handle this many worms.)

Christ, Klaus was his _brother_.

The thought didn’t make Diego want to pull away though, he tangled his fingers with Klaus’ - the hand that used to read _hello_ but now it was just smooth, cool skin- and kissed him harder. 

And it took everything in his stupid teenage body to keep from pitching a fucking tent at the sound of Klaus mumbling his nickname all sweet, and he’d forgotten how shitty puberty actually was until now.

Damn, he really missed being an adult. He missed his functional adult brain cells. 

“Come on, _bro_ ,” Klaus broke from the kiss, and Diego had to stop himself from pouting at the loss of warmth. Klaus nipped at the tip of Diego’s nose, something Diego couldn’t bring himself to be weirded out by- maybe because he liked it. “We can’t miss dear old Daddy’s funeral! You know, this only happens twice in a lifetime!”

Diego wrinkled his nose. “Don’t call me bro, Klaus. You just had your tongue in my mouth.” He made an attempt to smooth the wrinkles out of his clothes (kissing Klaus was a lot like kissing a hurricane, he thought) to no avail.

Klaus licked his cheek, the tip of his tongue rough against Diego’s skin (he shivered). “What, kissing you’re little bother isn’t doing it for you, Dee?” He grinned like a crazy person ( _he_ is _a crazy person,_ Diego thought rather fondly), gapped teeth and all.

Diego rolled his eyes, wiping the saliva off his cheek with the sleeve of his blazer. “You’re s-sick in the head, you k-know that?” 

Klaus shrugged. “Yeah,” he said, lazily hooking their pinkies together, and Diego felt his face go all soft and warm. “But something tells me it doesn’t bother you all that much.” Another soft bite, this one into the flesh of Diego’s chin, and Diego thought his knees might buckle if it weren’t for the wall he was leaning against, God, what was _wrong_ with him?

Klaus let their pinkies unwind, going all goey at the blissed out look on his brother’s face. He was sure the next second they had the time, he would nip and gnaw at every soft freckle on Diego’s face (he had tons of them, stuck all over his nose and cheeks, and something icky and utterly _romantic_ crawled under Klaus’s skin at the very sight of them).

Klaus let himself drift away from Diego, before he could say something stupid like _I love you_ and ruin everything. Because Klaus knew Diego was new to all of this, and even though he’d been catching his brother staring since the very first time he wore mascara back when they were 12, Klaus figured this was more of an attraction thing than an _I want to spend the rest of my life with you_ thing. Which he was fine with. Sorta.

(Actually, something in Klaus ached at the thought of Diego not loving him back, kissing him with no feeling. Something _died and rotted and festered and_ ) 

Yeah, he was totally fine with it.

Klaus was halfway down the hall before he let himself speak again. “See you out there, dear brother o’ mine,” he called over his shoulder, grinning when Diego flipped him the finger. He walked away with the heaviest, love struck feeling in the hollow of his chest. He wished it would go away. 

 

-

—

-

 

_Here we go again._

Diego stood shivering in the middle of his father’s rotting courtyard as rain soaked the shoulders of his academy uniform and turned the hard packed dirt beneath his shoes into a thick sludge. He hated the sick, unsure feeling that settled in his gut as he watched his father’s ashes fall to the floor in a wet, unceremonious clump. He hated not knowing what to do, hated that Five had collapsed without telling them what they were supposed to _say_ to themselves. One Hargreeves family was a nightmare, but two? Now that was pushing it.

Thunder rumbled from above, Diego observed his siblings from where they all stood, some old- others young. He managed a glance at Klaus- the older Klaus- huddled underneath his ridiculously tiny umbrella. Diego let himself look at his mother for a moment, she met his eyes beneath the brim of her umbrella, kind and blue and almost loving if Diego looked hard enough. He didn’t, though. This Grace wasn’t his mother, not really anyway. He watched _himself_ , stood in the rain with his arms crossed over his chest, mouth set into a thin line and eyes guarded. Diego could recognize the anger behind them, cloudy like the sky above. Klaus managed to hook their pinkies together ever so slightly as Pogo spoke, words Diego had heard before, didn’t care to hear another time. He stood next to Diego, Ben hunched like a shadow at his side. There hadn’t been enough Umbrellas for everybody (you’d think there would be, considering the name of the place), and his hair lay flat on his head because of the rain, water droplets sliding down the wet curls. He had more color to his face than the last time Diego could remember, pink in his cheeks and a glow behind his eyes. After all the detoxing and the tremors and the hollow gray sheen on his skin, Klaus almost looked healthy- and something like pride burned brightly in Diego when he looked at him. Klaus caught his eye with a sick grin. “Like Déjà vu, huh Dee?” he whispered over Pogo.

“He was a _monster_.”

Diego watched himself from across the circle, soaking wet and _angry_. It was weird, to see his own words parroted back to him, to feel the fire in his gut burn just as brightly as it did the first time he said them. After-all, what had Sir done for them, besides destroy them? One by one, number by number- they were destroyed. _Ruined_.

“He was a bad a person and a worse father,” something in his voice cracked as he said it, and Diego could feel the phantom ache in his throat. “The world is better off without him.”

“Diego-“ Allison started with a sigh that was lost in the patter of rain against umbrellas. Next to her, the older Klaus giggled around the stick on an unlit cigarette. Vanya shrunk into herself like she wanted to blip into nothing.

“My name,” the man before them said. “Is Number Two.”

 _Number Two._ Something in Diego crumbled to dust at the brand.

The Apocalypse has been stopped for now. Diego had his siblings back, every last one of them, alive and breathing and _annoying_ but he cared for them nonetheless.

But the resentment would always be there, _burningburningburning_ a hole through his stomach. Klaus gripped his hand tighter. His Academy tattoo seemed to sting and bite into his skin, like it was acid.

“You should stop talking,” the older Luther said through clenched teeth, stiff and angry, and Diego felt the air go still around them.

“You of all people should agree with me, _Number One_ ,” the man turned on Luther in a split second, spitting words out like they were poison, and Diego knew what was coming. They all did, even those who hadn’t lived it already. It wasn’t a family outing if it didn’t end in a horrid fight, after-all. “After all the old man did to you? He had you shipped a _million miles away_ because he couldn’t stand the _sight_ of you-“

“You’re right.”

It was quiet suddenly, the soft patter of rain harsh in Diego’s ears.

It was Luther who had spoken, the Luther who had lived through this fight already, just as Diego had.

He met the boy’s eyes over the clump of their father’s ashes, though rain and gloom and the heat of an argument cut short.

“H-huh?”

Luther couldn’t bring himself to look at the older version of himself. _That_ Luther didn’t know yet, didn’t know how stupid he sounded defending their father. How stupid he would look later on when he would trap his own sister in a cage like an animal, like he could justify it.

_She used to cry when they stepped on ants, and he treated her like she was some kind of monster._

His siblings hated him, his father couldn’t stand to have him around, and Allison wouldn’t even look at him. 

He had to make things right, he couldn’t be Number One anymore. 

It was time to be Luther.

“You’re right,” Luther said again, looking at Diego. “You…you were always right, I…”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

It had gone silent, every single Hargreeves- big and small alike- was looking at him like he’d just sprouted an extra limb, completely dumb founded.

And then,

“I _can’t believe_ it took the end of the world for you clowns to start acting civil to each other,” Ben deadpanned.

“The end of the _what_?” Klaus squawked, his tiny pink umbrella nearly folding into itself with his head stuck inside it.

“Shit,” Ben said. He must’ve forgot people could hear him again.

“What is he talking about?” The older Diego asked accusingly, and Luther’s blood ran cold.

Oh, Five was gonna be so mad he didn’t get to bear the bad news himself.

And then the house started to shake, low and groaning on its foundation, like it would collapse any minute.

”What the hell is that?” Allison asked over the low rumble of the house.

Oh, shit.

“Is it the Commission?” Luther glanced frantically at his siblings.

“N-no. It’s…”

“Christ on a cracker!” Klaus cried, eyes widening in realization.

“Vanya!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay Vanya is awake!! Comments are greatly appreciated and I always wanna know what you guys think about my characterization(still working in it haha). 
> 
> Let me know :)

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like it? Hate it? Let me know in the comments!! Also how was my characterization? I’m still working on it oop-


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